Friends at office and Gyaan!

Back to work in the new project, after the holiday I had in Vegas for two months, it's no more party time at work. It is a complete different work environment in this project, I was under the impression that usually state projects are cool, but this project proves me wrong.However, if you have friends around you and when you have messengers available to talk to friends in different parts of the world, work seems to be made easy, isn't it? And when you have old pals in the company your journey isn't less eventful.

I always consider myself very lucky in having some great buddies and thank God for giving me such a great group of friends. At my work, I have friends who are my bench mates in the high school with whom I shared my first little secrets; I have friends from my junior college, the guys with whom shared the feeling of being the free birds out of school; i have friends from my engineering class, the people with whom I graduated; and the friends with whom I made it to this level, starting from my 7th standard. Isn't your work place a great place to be, when you have friends from all walks of your life?

KK happens to be one from the above group of friends,this dude is my junior college buddy. This guy is a specialist in maintaining a great network of friends. If you want to get any news information about any damn person your network KK is the guy you should be looking to. I am lucky to be in his good books. This chap had put a majestic untiring effort to get into this work place. I heard stories about Gazini, the perisan ruler who invaded ancient India 16 times and lost, to taste success on his 17th attempt. But I had seen that similar kind of effort from my buddy KK. This guy appeared for interviews at this current work place for "X" number of times and had to misout due to some unspecified reasons but never gave up. And finally tasted success to be at the place where the best choose to be. I personally feel he deserves to be there.

KK happens to be in my office messenger list, and I ping him very often; I sometimes annoy him, but thatz what friends are there for. KK is recently appearing for GMAT, this is one ambitious guy who is never resting and wants to keep climbing all the while. This guy recently came to know about my blog, and had imparted some gyan to me. This guy has made me realize the weight-age of this extra curricular activities in making it to MBA. This dude wants me to write something about social, economic, current affairs, industry specific etc. which people will be interested in reading. My view is that totally depends on the intention with which we write the blog, to some extent this chap had convinced me to start a new blog with my knowledge in the packages that I have been working since the last 5 years. Knowingly or unknowingly he made me realize the truth that I have gained an experience of 5 years in industry.

Now to fight back, I asked him to start one on his own with such topic, he reverted back by saying he has to start the journey from zero, and as I have already started my journey it will be easier for me to keep writing in different topics. Yeah dude, I understand there is a little friction in the beginning, that you will get through it once you keep it going. Anyways, thanks buddy, I will seriously consider it. As KK had put it, though I am not a celebrity to keep writing about my daily routine in the blog and expect people to read, I say, I am not writing for people to read buddy, this is just a medium to express my feelings with the day to day happenings in life. But thanks for the gyan dost! I might start a new blog on your direction, who knows?

Las Vegas to Lansing.

Ambiguity is the word that perfect describes the life of a consultant. Though there are scheduled durations to a project, but never are they stable. The duration of the project keeps changing, like the recently concluded project which was scheduled to go till the next year got scrapped in two months time. As I mentioned in the previous post, I considered my project in Vegas as a paid holiday. I wish I stayed there a little longer.

Along with this ambiguity there comes a positive side, you are on the move all the time. Having kicked out of Vegas with a little notice, I was lucky enough to find another project in Lansing, the capital city of Michigan state (i.e. the great lakes state). Michigan is one of the northern states in US that is bordering Canada. There is a road here in the city of Detroit, which goes to Canada. Out of the four states that I have been, Michigan seems to be the one with less development. Though the state is home to some of the major car manufacturing companies the roads here not as great as they are in California or Colorado. Looks like the recent economic downturn has effected the state very badly. But the positive side effect is the state is re-building the roads here out of the funding they have from the sanctioned bail out package.

Don't know for some reason I liked taking the long route via LA, may be the thought of being in LA for a stopover fancied me. I have been in LAX airport several times, but never in the domestic airport. Traveling to Lansing from Las Vegas via Los Angeles is not a wise decision, but this meant that I had to take a red eye flight from LA to Lansing. The experience of taking a red eye flight is horrible, you are traveling the whole night, without any proper sleep. I wouldn't appreciate this experience, but really have got loads of appreciation to those consultants who travel coast to coast in the red eye flights. Anyways, my red eye experience was bad, I was not asleep for more than an hour in that four hour flight. Adding insult to injury was I spilled a glass of ice cold water on my pants and seat with about 30 mins into the journey and had to deal with it for the rest of the journey ;-(.

I landed at Detroit airport early in the morning with half asleep and rented a Subaru, a mini SUV, I wanted to drive this car for a long time and the lady in the rental location was generous to rent this car at an affordable rate. I had to drive from Detroit to Lansing, i.e about 90 miles (around 1hr 30 mins) in a chilly weather and without proper sleep. This was my first long drive alone, though I was on road trips many a time, but never was alone. So took up to driving, it was a totally different transition from one extreme of the world to another extreme. It was like, I was thrown into some remote part of America. Dude, the roads are small, it's woods all the way on either sides of the road, sometimes you can even find Deers on the road.

After driving for 90 minutes I was at the hotel, and wasn't surprised to see the Indian contingent at the hotel. Now I got used to finding Indians in any part of the world, the first time I was coming to US, I felt it will be hard to find Indians. Right now, I feel, it is hard to find any place without Indians. Mind you I am not being sarcastic in the above sentence, but being proud that we Indians are ruling the world ;-). The moment I was waiting for in the last 90 mins to hit the bed once I am at hotel had to be delayed for another 90 mins as I was very early to the hotel from my prescribed check in time. With the only option of going to my friend Mr.S's place, went to his place and crashed for a nap.

On getting a message that my room was ready for occupation, returned back to hotel, freshened up and hit the road again. This time to meet my buddies at Jackson, my consulting firm is doing another project here which is just 30 miles from here. My buddy Mr.Cool dude, has moved to this project about 7 months back after he returned from London. I met him after a gap of one year, the last time we saw each other was when this dude left LA for London. It's always a great pleasure to meet your friends and especially the one's who are really close to you in thinking..etc.
I am impressed by this guy. Anyways, I was in Jackson by 2.30 PM and among friends on the first day.

We went on a small long ride to a near by lake, btw Michigan is known for its lakes and it really should be for the number of lakes that are here. Had a classy time sipping Starbucks coffee at the shores of a lake. I always imagined of Jackson as a big city similar to LA by the descriptions given by another friend Mr.Sk, the fitness freak, but in reality it is totally opposite of what I imagined, but it is cool. Couple of weeks back I was thinking I never lived in a village, now here I got my wish is fulfilled by being in these towns of Lansing and Michigan. Sk is a fitness freak and is athletic too. He asked to jump over a small fencing, I under estimated the fencing height and went for a jump which resulted in me crashing on the stones with free fall. There I go nearly missing a fracture on the first day of my stay in Michigan. However, later the day was made more memorable by playing cricket. Though we lost both the games we played, it was a little different experience from playing tennis. Thus after the dinner with my buddies at Outback, returned home and crashed in the bed after an eventful day.

Leaving Las Vegas!

I knew at some point in time I will have this post on my blog, but never wanted it to be this early. Unfortunately things aren't in our control; the other day we were planning to stay in Sin City for about an year, now we are packing our bags to leave the city. In 'Bhagwad Geetha' Lord Krishna had said, "Parivartan hee sansar ka neeyam hai"; english transation-- change is the way of life, i.e. change is the only thing constant in life. We personally don't realise that reality until we get the experience of it. Consulting is one such profession which keeps changing, keeps you on the move all the time and prooves the above statement is true.

Life comes at you very hard. Couple of months back, I was trying hard to get to the entertainment capital of the world and my prayers were anwered and I came to Sin City on a project. Now I am helpless on knowing that I will be leaving the place in couple of weeks. That is the way of life. I personally believe these things make people strong. Though we knew this is coming at us, we weren't sure of the time. Now that finally, it has come out, we (the consultants) are back on beach (in consulting terminology).

I would like to be positive and treat the last two months as one of the best two months to happen for me. I have never been on a project like this any time, and don't know if I will work for a company that is rated one among the 100 best companies to work for by Fortune magazine. The work environment here is ultra cool, no dress code, beautiful people around and well decorated office with the fashion designs/posters. Well the first impression of the office for me was -- it was more of a college rather than an office. The one thing that I am surely going to miss from the project is the no dress code policy. Man, its cool to be working at office in your shorts, T-shirts, sandals and to have beautiful female colleagues in their gorgeous fashion outfits.

Good things in life come in small packaages. All good things in life come to an end, at the same time all good things will start again. I have decided to hope for the best and keep enjoying the journey, more importantly make complete use of stay in Sin City. Isn't this like a paid holiday, well I would treat it that way.

Know..Know..Not No...Know..Know!

I know the title of the post is funny, felt that this is apt for the content that is posted. This post is about a poem that I got to learn from our English lecturer in junior college. Here goes the poem as I remember,

Know!

He who knows not, knows not that he knows not,

He is a fool, shun him.

He who knows not, knows that he knows not,

He is ignorant, teach him.

He who knows, knows not that he knows,

He is asleep, wake him.

He who knows, knows that he knows,

He is a leader, follow him.

Meeting Mr.S.

Believe it or not, I have decided to visit the Hindu Temple of LV every weekend on Saturday or at least once a week and this is my third successive week here. To make things a little complex, I have been a practising vegetarian since last one month and going to be like that for next one month. This one month, I have lived the life of a pure vegetarian didn't even taste omelet. I am really finding it difficult to be a vegetarian, can't imagine how the pure vegetarians live their whole life without eating non-veg. Terrible man! Anyways, being optimistic I think that its going to be only a month, so my countdown has started its 28 more days before I start eating non-veg.

This Saturday, after getting out of the party mood that we carried from Thursday night party and the after effects of the party, made my way to temple. Doctor S wanted to come to temple and my friend SY also wanted to join us, but his after effects of the party did not allow him to do so. In his best interest we suggested him to take rest for one more day. Dr.S and me left to temple which is roughly 20 miles from our place of residence. We live on the SE of 215 and the temple is diagonally opposite towards NW of 215. Anyways, traffic is not at all a problem, as the city goes to sleep after sunrise. A drive of about 30 mins left us at the temple.

On my last 3 or 4 visits to the temple this is the first time that I saw a crowd of approximately 50 people at the temple. First tried to recollect if there is anything special, but Dr.S informs me that on every first Saturday of the month, the Abhishekam Pooja of Lord Venkateshwara is performed. Owing to our good luck, we just landed in the temple at the beginning of the Abhishekam Pooja. This is the first time, that I witnessed the Abhishekam of Lord Venkateshwara, and am really happy about it. The pooja took about 1.30 Hours and unlike the temples in India, the good thing that I like about the temples in US is, the devotees get a chance to offer harathi to Bhagvan. This is the second temple where I got to do so, the former being the Hindu temple of Denver which I used to visit every Thursday on my second visit. At the time of Harathi today the temple bell was rung by an elderly person. Realising that it was tiring for him, Dr.S offered support to him by ringing the bell for sometime. We all completed the harathi and took the prasadam.

When I thought it was time to get back home as it was already 1.30 Hrs in the temple, then the same elderly person who rang the bell walks up to us and introduces himself as Mr.S, who is a regular visitor to the temple and is also one of the members of the temple committee. Here comes the advantage of being in the company of Doctors. When Dr.S introduced himself as a doctor who is a practising Orthopeditian in India and is on a research program here, Mr.S was impressed and started talking about his son who is also pursuing his medicine in US. His daughter is pursuing her under graduation in Entrepreneurship at some institute in Boston. I got to introduce myself as an IT Consultant currently on the project for one of the popular shoe stores online which recently got sold to the largest online store for books etc. Mr.S immediately identified the company because of the recent developments of the company and tried to identify some official of HR at my current client location. I politely answered that I was new to the client and don't know the HR official.

Mr.S then took us to the prasadam (this time mid day lunch), he decided to have lunch with us. In the process I was personally happy to have a proper Indian lunch with puri and sambar in addition to other Indian delicacies. Mr.S joined us at the lunch table and introduced us to another Doctor who happens to be a regular visitor to the temple. Then we started discussing all the things about how lucky we were to be here in America compared to the many who are willing to be in this nation. As we were all God fearing gentleman in the temple, we all attributed our journeys to the blessings of 'The Lord'.

As most elderly start telling about themselves and the path they travelled, Mr.S was no exception. Mr.S who is originally from Mangalore in Karnataka, told us that he first got the exposure of America by watching the picture of Sunrise in the state of Arizona on one of the magazines of his day back in the 60's called "The Span" (I don't know if I correctly remember the name). It seems his uncle used to get that English magazine in 60's and he was impressed by the picture of the sunrise in the magazine and he remembered the name of the state as "Horizon" instead of "Arizona". He then decided to visit America. It seems he started asking everyone about the ways of getting to America but everyone who visited US used to give him lectures about why he wanted to be there etc..(as it is common in our society). But he was determined to be in the States.

He told that he was not great at his academics, and could not clear his SSLC ( current day SSC, i.e. 10th board exams in India). He moved to Bombay (current day Mumbai) in search of job, he got some job worked for sometime in a company based in US. Then he moved to Saudi Arabia for the same company and worked for a good number of years. Once when he was working in Saudi Arabia, his company offered him a training in the states, which gave him the opportunity to visit US for the first time. Seems after his training program of 15 days, he was given the option to travel around US for a month. On this travel he visited Disney Land in LA and was very impressed by the country and its achievements. The his desire to move to US has increased.

Until his children were of the age to start going to school, he was in Saudi Arabia. After that the company that he was working for offered him the opportunity to move to US which he accepted. As you know that the work i.e. jobs in US are volatile (i.e. you can be hired and fired anytime), he lost his job within 3 months of his arrival here. He found another job and for a period of 3 years it seems he never had a permanent job. He mentioned that the economic crisis in late 80's was far more worse than the economic crisis we are facing today. Landing in different jobs he finally, ended up in Las Vegas, the Sin City. It seems till date he has worked on 27 different jobs, and all different. I just thought I am not even 27 as of today..,hmm.

In LV, he was working in one of the departments in the volcanic casino and his boss moved to another rich casino. X and Y happen to be one of the rich casinos in LV. The party that we had on Thursday night was in Encore under the same management of X. Coming back to the topic, his boss who was a lady called up Mr.Sand asked him if he would work for her in X. His answer was and I quote "For a proper price, I will work for anyone". She offered him a 30% hike and he moved to X. When he was working at X, she asked him to attend a conference on IT developments and implementation at X, which she wasn't much interested. Mr.S attended the conference and there he met some senior officer at X. The Senior Officer offered him another position and his answer was the same "For a proper price, I will work for anyone". This senior officer talks to the lady who brought him to X and gets him to a new position with another 30% hike. When at work one day, in the corridor he met with one of the senior most officers at the X and wishes him. On seeing him and knowing his background this senior officer offers him the position of the senior official (something like that) and as you know by now, "For a proper price..". Thus Mr.S landed up being the senior officer of one of the departments at X. Mr.S attributed everything he has and his development to the blessings he has from "The Lord Venkateshwara", as all these chain of events started after his visit to the Lord of Seven Hills at Tirumala, Tirupathi. Interestingly enough, he is the third person I got to know of this situation, the second person being Mr.RS (the tamilian who is a Canadian citizen) currently working at my previous client the cheese producers. Do you want to know who the first is? Take a guess.

As part of the discussion Mr.S told that qualifications was little to do with whatever you want to be. As I want to discuss and don't like accepting as it is (other than subject matters), I questioned him saying, back in those days there was no competition and no qualified people. Hence he could make it. His answer or rather the statistic was interesting, it seems the sociologists say that out of the 22 years of formal education that we receive it is only 7% of that education that we put to use in our daily life. Out of that 7%, 93% of what we use the education that we have received in our primary or lower school. The rest of the 15 years of education that we receive attributes to only 7%. Then he counter questioned me by asking "How much of the education that you received in your under graduate course are you using in the current job?". Obviously I was stumped, I did my engineering in Electronics and Communications but I am working on SAP Consulting which has got nothing to do with what I studied. Even in my interview I was asked the question of the difference between series and parallel connections, which even a 6Th grade student can answer. His statistic made sense. I hope most of you (us) would agree with his statistic.

But how much of luck can take you to where he is today? Then as part of further argument he agreed that he had worked harder to be successful in his different jobs. As all the jobs that he did were different, he didn't even had the advantage of claiming the experience. He said he had to work extra hard to learn and perform, unlike his colleagues or team members who were more qualified or trained or experienced. There were days which he didn't even go home because of our work. There lies the answer. I believe and read the quote many places by many personalities that "There is no substitute to hard work and dedication." Fortune favours the brave!

Once we were done with our lunch and discussions, we were invited to Mr.S's place for a proper Udupi style breakfast on some weekend. He was actually, interested in taking us to his place this afternoon, but we had to go home to know the status of our friend SY. We thanked him for the invitation and came home with the blessings of The Lord, prasdam for my friend and the experience of meeting an interesting personality.

My Dad, always tells me to visit temples and mingle with the Indian community here. I am sure, he will be very happy to know this experience. But you know the type of communication that I have with my father, I don't know if I would be able to express everything to him. At least I am happy that I did something, he wants me to do.

Hottest Party in Vegas!

My last few weekends in Sin City have been limited to gambling and tennis. This weekend we made the most of it by attending one of the hottest parties in Vegas. The event was the 10th anniversary of the client, the party was at "Encore" casino "XS Nightclub" and my consulting company were the sponsors.

I was up for the party right from the day it was announced couple of weeks back. My friend SY, was little skeptical about attending the party as there were only drinks, no food. He even suggested that the party was no use for me as I don't even drink alcohol. But I was least bothered and was determined to be there. I compelled him to accept the invitation for the party. However even till Thursday evening he was not willing to attend. I however, got the company of Ar an independent consultant, my counterpart working in the same team. SY tried to put a condition to me for his attendance, this week we rented a Chrysler Sebring Convertible Coupe. We were not able to take off the roof of the car, we just didn't pay enough attention during the week. SY told me that he would attend the party if I could get the roof off. I tried all the tricks and called the Avis help desk who in turn directed us to the rental location. We tried calling the guy and tried to fix it with the help of instructions we received from the guy on the other end of the call. When we started to take it to the rental location, we figured it out accidentally. Now SY tried to play some tricks to avoid himself from coming to the party, but I forced him into it.

As there was no food at the party, we decided to have our dinner and leave for the party as per Indian Punctuality at 10.00 PM (party starts at 9.00 PM). We drove in our topless Chrysler two door car, along with Ar. The experience was awesome and adding to that was the speed with which SY drove the car made it more fun. As we entered the strip with convertible car and Telugu songs playing.."Bangaru Kodipetta" from the recent movie "Magadheera" in full volume was an awesome experience. Just as we entered the strip, one of the girls from the adjacent Hummer Limousine waved at me, I was a little confused but realised and waved her in return. It was really a funny experience.

We made it to the XS night club just when the party was heating up. The first person we met was our PM, PS at the bar. PS offered us the tequila shots which SY and AR obliged. PS was little disappointed at me on not drinking, thatz ok. I tried Red Bull, for the first time at the party. Usually Red Bull is energy drink that energies you, but I felt a little sleepy. Anyways, the party was heating up and all the people were in great party mood. I couldn't find anyone without a drink. People were inside the air balloon and walking on the water in the swimming pool, with some beautiful young girls assisting them. There was some energy meter which people were trying to test their energy levels. Some 3 or 4 bars all around the place and the private cabins and public beds on either sides of the swimming pool. It was a real party atmosphere. Important point to note, SY didn't carry his mobile that day, which added to our troubles that evening that would last for next two days, however no mention here..hmm..'Whatever happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas'.

We walked around the place then as it happens, SY spent more time at different bars in the club. I spent time on the dance floor and AR was walking around with a drink in his hand. As time passed by the dance floor heated up and could see people dancing wild. I love dancing in the nightclubs and that's the only thing worthwhile for me to do in such a party. I was a little hesitant in the club in the beginning but once I started dancing got the company of a girl who was drunk and was little tall. Danced with her for sometime, she showed me some steps and we danced for few minutes. The vidoe link posted at the end of the post has this girl (Try to take a guess!).Then there was no stopping for me. I earlier thought we need to have a partner to dance, but then I realised everyone was single and could find a partner on the dance floor itself. Moreover I was not concerned about others anymore and was dancing my heart out. One of my friends told or may be I read it some where "One should dance as if no one is watching you". That's the same principle I applied and was completely immersed in dancing.

As I was dancing on the floor, for sometime I had the company of AR. Later he was busy with drinks. I did not bother about SY, as I thought I could find him after the party on the dance floor or in the night club after the party. It was really fun and a great experience on the dance floor, the girls were really hot and beautiful. There was one girl who I thought was the most beautiful in the party that night was dancing next to me. I tried to approach her but as you know our inhibitions.I was thinking twice and by the time I could realise, she was in the arms of the other guy. God man, I just lost the opportunity to dance with the girl I liked that night. Later on further analysis; my friend SY suggested that if I atleast had a beer or two that night, I wouldn't have had such inhibitions. Alas I don't drink! Anyways, I was content that I got to dance with the other girl. I better refrain from mentioning the wild things that happened at the party. Wow, for sometime I thought the party would go on till the next morning, I actually wanted it to be like that. But the party got over just after midnight.

After the party I at least tried to find and compliment the girl I liked, but it was not to be the case. She just got disappeared and I got busy searching my friend SY, whom I lost earlier in the party. The Indian Mafia, i.e. ( me, AR and SY) as we are called by the client side PM, JNY, met and came back home later that night. This party really deserves to be "The Hottest Party" that I ever attended and that being my first night club experience in Sin City makes it really special. Here goes the link for the video posted by Zappos CEO on his twitter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfeZgT26e4U